"My addiction was triggered when I had my first drink (of alcohol) as a 15-year-old."

Former Collingwood footballer Gavin Crosisca talks with Eddie McGuire about his drug addiction during his football career. Picture: Ian CurrieSource: The Sunday Times

Soon the teenager became a daily user of cannabis, something that was a constant during his playing career at the Magpies before spiralling into a full-blown amphetamines addiction while trying to coach at senior AFL level with North Melbourne, Hawthorn and Carlton.

His "taste" for speed gripped him while celebrating the Pies' 1990 premiership, and 21 years later his life and prospects had been destroyed.

"It brought me to my knees last year. Nicole, my wife, admitted me into a rehab facility where I spent 30 days, before continuing with three months of intensive therapy at a residential rehabilitation facility, which opened my eyes to a new way of life."

Crosisca has been "clean" since May 5 last year.

He has dedicated himself to his studies, educating himself in the drug-and-alcohol field, and his first lecture was to the senior players at Collingwood a fortnight ago.

The two Gavins, Crosisca and Brown, are chaired off for the final time. Picture: Joe MannSource: The Sunday Times

"I want to make this my life. I will tell this story every day for the rest of my life if it makes a difference."

He has slowly rebuilt his relationship with his wife, Nicole, and children Joshua, 13, Riley, 10, and Teagan, 9.

"All I'd known was masking, covering feelings and emotions up with drugs for so long. On reflection it's a lot of manipulation, a lot of lies, a lot of dishonesty.

"If ever I was confronted it would be defensive responses from me, blaming others."

Crosisca, nicknamed "Bagger" because of his confrontational nature at Collingwood, says addiction became a way of life after his first drink in Brisbane while celebrating his selection in the under 16 All-Australian team by drinking a bottle of Bundaberg Rum.

"That was a complete blackout situation. That first drink, I knew that was when my addiction started and cannabis started straight away then.

"I woke up the next day in the laundry (at the house where the party occurred). I could imagine the parents of the boy, they would have been very, very distraught with my state.

"I remember vomiting a lot and that just started it."

Crosisca, who played 246 games for the Magpies between 1987 and 2000 and was an assistant coach at North Melbourne, Hawthorn and Carlton for six years, says his addiction ruined his "career, his finances and his family".

"Before I came to Collingwood my addiction was on fire inside me. I actually brought a reasonable amount of cannabis down here when I first moved to Melbourne and I thought that was going to be it.

"I was hoping I'd be able to work my way through it, put it behind me and then look at getting into a positive football career."

His mother, Kay, who moved to be with him and was the house mother, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1988.

"Through 1990 I might have started the consistent cannabis use daily. It was something I needed or believed I needed to sleep. It was a night-time thing.

"I was completely isolated back then."

Crosisca went to great lengths to keep his drug use away from his Collingwood teammates.

"I had a house in Ferntree Gully, I remember Graeme Allen (Collingwood football manager) saying to me 'What are you buying a house out there for?'. I certainly wasn't going to tell Gubby I was going out there so no one would pop in and catch me stoned on the couch.

Crosisca tried speed for the first time with a friend at a one-day cricket match at the MCG during the summer before the Magpies' drought-breaking 1990 premiership.

"It was just out of the blue, going to a one-day cricket match at the end of 1989.

"I had a taste of it and (sigh) ... To change the inside of me that I was feeling it was perfect for me, it just gave me confidence, it allowed me to communicate well and it changed the person I thought I was.

"It was a once off and then the next taste I had was in our Grand Final celebrations."

Crosisca was one of Collingwood's best players in the celebrated 1990 premiership; he wasn't to know just how that victory would be a life-changing experience.

Collingwood partied like never before as 32 years of Magpie agony finally came to an end on that fateful day in October.

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